


Witness

by BananaStrings



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Coda, Cohabitation, Companions, Identity, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26587459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananaStrings/pseuds/BananaStrings
Summary: Flint had been right. Silver had been wrong, and Silver couldn't live without knowing why.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw & Thomas Hamilton & John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Witness

John sat on the cliff and watched the horizon like a fisherman’s wife. He’d told Madi he would wait for her. He didn’t know why he was looking in the wrong direction, until she came to him. 

"We stand together for the last time," she said.

If she’d not taken hold of his hand here in the bright light and the gusting wind, he would have believed he’d fallen from that cliff to the bottom of the sea.

"I cannot stand beside a man, who sees me as weak, and expect others to see me as strong."

"I don’t see you as weak."

"Did you not believe that I had succumbed to Flint’s influence?"

"Everyone succumbs to Flint’s influence."

"That may be true, but Flint never tried to influence me. He saw me as his equal."

She let his hand go, and Silver was struck by just how right Flint had been about this day.

_"You’re lucky for it. It will be quick. A month maybe. Madi is young and strong and surrounded by those who love her. She won’t delay."_

And Silver rebelled, still not sure if Flint had predicted this or willed it.

He spent the following year searching in secret for the chest, hoping to repay the debt he’d incurred with Madi in ending her war prematurely and taking her general from her. He found Billy like a ghost in the jungle, the voice of God the stories had warned about. He was entirely mad, barely human, thin as bones, and half-starved. He spoke in sounds like an animal, having had only them to speak to for a year, and yet part of John envied him, to be stripped of this humanity, so heavy that it threatened to drown him. He killed Billy in his sleep before he left, as a mercy, he told himself. 

It took five years to find Flint. He’d hidden himself well, but the world was not endless. Silver came upon them, as they slept. They faced one another, arms keeping one another close. Their night candle flickered over the knife he held, and he gasped. He remembered that moment, when it had occurred to him that Thomas might be alive. It had felt like lightning striking too close in a storm and sizzling the rain from the rocks, drying instantly and sharply the wet away. John had forgotten what it felt like not to drown. 

Thomas looked like he was supposed to, tall and fair and broad-shouldered, like a classical hero. Yet, he wasn’t made like he was supposed to be, not inside, for God had made him good and sympathetic. A mistake that had cost the lives of countless men, and saved the lives of countless more. He was striking. He looked right, and here Silver knelt on the floor, where he’d crawled into their home, not as a reaper he knew now but as a pilgrim. His silence a reverence not a threat. 

He knew he would not make it out alive. Flint blinked open his eyes, sleepy and peaceful. He looked at John, curious for a moment, like he didn’t recognize what he was. Silver slid the knife across the floor to the bedside and laid himself down flat. He’d seen Flint kill. He wanted to go like that, pressed beneath his body, pressed to this earth he’d struggled so hard to land upon again. 

"What’s that smell?" Thomas murmured. 

The stink of him had awoken him, and, as hard as Silver tried not to, he felt himself starting to laugh. He was shocked silent again, when he heard Flint’s laughter join his. Flint sighed, a sound John had only heard him make once before: on the ship to Savannah, when he’d finally stopped struggling against his bonds. Flint picked up the knife, and an instinct Silver had believed long dead in him rerose in his throat. 

"As hard as it is to believe, I’d smell worse dead."

Thomas sat up. Silver watched Flint secret the blade beneath the pillow, but then pull out one of his own, which shone in the lamplight, as Thomas touched candle to lampwick. 

"Thomas, may I introduce…your name?"

"The infamous, Long Jo—"

"No, _your_ name."

Silver swallowed. This was a test, and, as with most of Flint's, a life or death one. He thought back to the elderly couple, who were his first memory. 'John Silver' they’d called him, because he could beg silver out of people’s purses, with soft, black curls and big, blue eyes and a smile, straight and true. He’d been their only source of income. It hadn’t been enough, when he’d gotten older and hungrier, and yet the corn had run out before the care, and they’d died to feed him. He’d hated them for leaving him alone with no skills but the smile of the hungry man. It was a lie he’d never escaped. 

When he’d told Flint his early life was one of horrors, the main horror of that life had been himself. Here he was belly down on the floor like a serpent, but Thomas had lit the lamp, and Flint had promised that what lay in the darkness was not a monster. 

"I don’t know that I was ever given one. In fact, aside from the laws of nature, I have no proof that I ever had parents at all. The couple, who raised me, found me, but wouldn’t tell me where. I think they were afraid it would disturb me, though it’s hard to imagine something more disturbing than being conjured from nothing."

"No more disturbing, I think, than having parents able to conjure you into nothing."

Thomas’s words fell onto his back, like the weight of Flint he’d hoped for, to press him down. It felt just as good as he’d hoped it would. 

"Well, I think you two will get along just fine," Flint concluded, "but our guest will be bathing first thing in the morning."

Silver awoke at dawn, as he was hauled up from the floor, where he’d slept. They stripped him of boot and blouse and sat him on a little stool in the yard. A big pot was brought from the hearth inside and a ladle and a cup, from which the warmed water was poured over his back. It felt nice; he moaned.

"You’re different," James, for he clearly was James now, mused. "I don’t remember you ever showing pleasure in anything before."

"How does a man get this dirty?" Thomas pondered. "The soap isn’t doing anything. I’ll get the washing soda."

Luckily the grind of the soda was fine enough not to remind him of sand, as they scrubbed him with cloths, like polishing silver. Beneath the patina, however, he was surprised to find was instead flesh and blood, as fresh skin was exposed and then pinked from abrading. Once both arms were clean, he ran the left palm over the right forearm. 

"I’m so soft," he murmured.

The hairs were downy and springy. The bare skin cooled as the water evaporated. It lay thin over his wrist and so much finer than he’d anticipated. He petted at himself, like smoothing the fur of a tamed beast.

"How long since you’ve eaten?" James asked him.

Ah, so he was being treated as invalid, because he was one.

"Five days."

"And water?"

"Day before last."

James pressed the next mug of warm water into his hands, and he drank from it, moaning his pleasure at this as well. In the pause in the work of bathing him, both men retreated into the house. Silver took the opportunity to divest himself of his now soaked breeches and sprawled in the tickling heat of the rising sun.

"Apparently he’d like help with the legs," James observed dryly. 

He was handed a biscuit, delicate and lacey. He stared at it.

"Something light to start," Thomas advised.

John frowned.

"A family in the village can’t live without them," James explained. "They send to a bakery in the city for them, and they like to share with me. I’m paid to protect this place, but they prefer to think their household is my highest priority."

"And now you share with me," John stated, the mouthful of water already helping to clear his head.

"And I will pay you to provide the same service to Thomas. You were the one who found a way to get to him, so you’ll be the one to make sure no one else does."

"That’s fair," he acceded, eating the biscuit in one bite.

James took hold of his hair, as Thomas knelt to resume work on his lower half. When Thomas hefted his truncated leg up to scrub at his bum, he grunted in surprise. Thomas looked up. 

"I had to be bathed during my first weeks in Savannah, as the fevers took me," he reassured with a little smile.

Silver tried to nod, but the both restraining and steadying grip on his hair prevented it. He was left to return the little smile, as Thomas worked back down to his thigh. His little smile lingered, as he finally had his answer as to why Flint hadn’t killed him so long ago, despite all the opportunities and all the benefits of doing so. Fate had preserved him simply because James had once loved a man with pretty, blue eyes.

"He can finish," James said.

Taking the offered cloth, Silver rubbed down his genitals with the soda. Instead of the discomfort he expected, it felt as refreshing as the rest of the bath. Though, it was a bit embarrassing to have to pick out bits of twig and fir tree needles and grass seed from his pubic hair. Now Thomas’s consternation, at how a man could become so dirty, made more sense.

"If we manage to salvage the hair, it’ll hang halfway down his back," James commented.

"He could double plait it like a brave."

"Do you deal with the Indian Confederacy often?"

"Yes, mostly to trade. Occasionally in less peaceable interactions."

"And, if that fancy sweet is any indication, you’re also on mostly peaceable terms with the village you’re protecting."

"Yes, they’re well aware of how Thomas and I are living."

"Oh?"

James sat on the grass, after passing him another cup of water to drink.

"There are very few daughters of marriageable age here, and the ones there are have families well intent on marrying them to a good match in the city. It’s preferable to them that I’m otherwise occupied, instead of seeking one of those daughters’ hands. None of the villagers are brave enough to press me to find a bride in the city for myself, in fear that I might move there, and thus remove my reasonably priced and competent services from them here. My loyalty to Thomas is not only tolerated but encouraged," James explained with amusement.

"This is it then," John realized. "This is what you were fighting for—the chance for people to find a way to fit together naturally and to make their own happiness. I didn’t truly believe it was possible, and yet here it is."

James studied him for a moment, then looked away.

"You might not feel so enthusiastic, when you see how you’ll be fitting."

He rose and fetched Silver’s crutch from where it had been leaning against the cabin. Silver looked at it, trying to see it as a stranger might.

"I’m to be the poor unfortunate you’ve taken on as manservant."

"No, that role has already been filled," Thomas corrected, his soft look indicating he’d humbled himself in that way.

"We served in His Majesty’s Navy together," James yarned for him, "where you were severely injured in a skirmish with pirates and haven’t been the same since."

"Oh, God," Silver caught on. "I’m Randall."

"I will introduce my dear friend, Randy, as a trusted advisor, but he will be a bit…"

"Daft," John completed.

Naked as the day, John hauled himself up on his crutch and gripped James’ shoulder.

"You will help me remember," he requested, "who I am."

James covered that hand with his own.

"I’m not likely to forget."

*

Neither the cuts nor the calluses of hard work could disguise the beauty of Thomas’s hands. They looked worshipful, even pulling needle and thread through cloth. John watched him concentrating on his task. One eye was scarred, burst vessels forming half a halo around the left iris, likely from a fever. He was lucky to be alive.

"I’m glad I didn’t die there," Thomas said, pausing in his stitching of Silver’s mattress.

He must have felt himself being observed, though he wouldn’t have known John’s thoughts. He wasn’t speaking of the fevers, but of the long, lonely years of labour, which had awaited him. It was a distaste John shared with him, one that had driven him to the sea he hated. He paused too in his sanding of the cot’s legs. James had left them with clear guidance on its construction. Thomas, though, he could thank for the money to purchase its materials. He’d drummed up sympathy in the village for James’ acquiring another mouth to feed and nudged his wages up a little more.

They regarded one another across the yard this morning, their walk in the village completed. Being seen as daft had given John the leeway to carry a sword, as he escorted Thomas on his business. The children tended to follow ‘Randy’, though he had no understanding nor interest in children. They asked if they could hold the sword hopefully each day, just to hear him reply faithfully that a sailor never surrenders his weapon. They also asked if they could see the crickets.

John had written this story himself: He’d crawled from the woods, caked in mud as slick as a seal, with a family of crickets living in his hair, and a mouse in his blouse. He’d screeched and hooted like an owl, until he’d seen James again and stood up and remembered he was a man. Truthfully, what he’d found here was less memory of manhood than discovery, for this was a life unknown to him. 

"I’m also glad for a second set of hands," Thomas admitted bashfully.

"James isn’t so glad I'm here."

It was rude of him. Thomas hadn’t been speaking of James but of himself, of his own life, and his own needs, but Silver still felt so tied to Flint that he didn’t know how else to respond. Instead of offense, Thomas smiled at him. 

"I grew up being dressed and undressed by a valet. I was watched, as I bathed and as I ate and as I boxed and fenced and hunted and studied. Company is more natural to me than privacy. I believe that to James, however, there is little of more value than his privacy."

Silver looked to what they were bringing about, a cot, so he would no longer be sleeping on the floor of their home. A permanent piece of furniture, well-crafted between the three of them. A place for him intimately situated in their lives.

"I tried to shelter Miranda from the extent of the passion between James and I, in an attempt to respect his need for privacy."

_“I want you.”_

_“No.”_

Thomas hadn’t been attempting to shelter John. Every night since he’d arrived a month ago, Thomas had asked James to share that passion and been turned down. Thomas didn’t seem upset about that, though once in a while James would drag Silver out of the house with him in the morning and forbid him to re-enter, until Thomas opened the door. It wasn’t difficult to guess that Thomas was loving himself on those mornings.

"It was unfair to her," Thomas said quietly.

This was the life unknown to John, this careful cooperation. It hadn’t even occurred to Silver that he could spare Thomas and James this conflict by simply lingering in the yard at dusk and letting the two men go in to bed alone. He also hadn’t been asked to. The shape of this thing was being left up to John, awaiting his decision. He could play polite servant and wait outside the door, or he could play beloved companion and know them in this way. Either choice would be respected.

He wanted to know.

Silver let the children lead him into the forest that afternoon to their favorite wild strawberry patch. They helped him pick enough for a tart in exchange for a demonstration of swordsmanship. As James made the crust and baked it in the coals that evening, he seemed pleased that John had started to show some initiative here. It helped him feel he’d started to earn the cot with its fresh and full mattress that put him on a level with their bed. 

He could see them from here, tucked around one another. With a little butter and sugar in his belly, James was more receptive to Thomas’s affection. He could see James accept a few kisses tonight before leaning his head out of reach.

"I want," James admitted, "to kiss you for a while."

"You want," Thomas jested softly, "to test my self-control. If you rouse me, I won’t be able to sleep."

"If you’re suggesting you’d tend to yourself, while lying beside me, that would test my self-control."

Silver’s heavy lids fluttered open, when the silence sprawled across the four feet of floor between them, to where he lay belly down with his face turned toward. Thomas caught his eye for a moment from over James’ shoulder. John was startled out of his drowsy amusement in the argument.

"He made his choice," Thomas whispered to James.

John hadn’t realized how obvious that choice of his had been. To the two quick minds he lived with, his lazy tumble into bed after supper, instead of a lazy tumble out the door, had spoken clearly. Finally John’s mind caught onto what he was asking to know. He knew only half of what James had fought for, the half that lived in daylight. He hadn’t seen the half that lived at night, and according to Thomas no one else had either. The weight of it pressed between his shoulder blades, mirrored in the tightness he saw in the line of James’ back. 

“I want,” Silver said quietly, “to see.”

"You will stay there," James commanded gruffly, gesturing with one arm behind him, without turning to look at Silver.

Silver almost asked where he was expecting him to go, until he realized James had no idea what to expect. Beloved companion could mean absolutely anything. They were all a mystery to one another in this.

When Thomas had said the word passion, John had thought of something wild and dangerous. He hadn’t thought of Thomas’s fingers carding smoothly through James’ neat, smartly cut hair. He hadn’t thought of their lack of urgency, as James started to roll his hips forward gently into Thomas’s. When James swept a hand up under Thomas’s night shirt, he only placed it over the man’s ribs to knead at his side, where bone lay close under thin skin, the place he could feel the structure and strength of him.

Silver closed his eyes, as he felt tears heat behind them. He had not guessed this, not after seeing the unrelenting ferocity that Flint had used to defend his nights. He had not guessed that in those nights lay tenderness. He had not guessed there was any tenderness in the New World, a world born of this union, reflecting their personalities, equally as hopeful as it was violent. And, he had not guessed that he would feel ashamed.

The contrast was too sharp to his memories of lying abed with Madi, trying so clumsily to be gentle and not knowing how, so unable to give comfort and affection. How childish he’d been, how grasping and needy. He’d forced her to choose between caring for him and for her nation. At least now he knew she had loved him, loved him enough to spare him watch that love turn to resentment.

As the tears dropped from his eyes, they washed the shame with them. Here tonight there was balm to his ignorance. 

*

When the leaves began to turn orange on the maples and drop to the ground, Thomas’s bright self-assuredness dropped away too. For the first few days, Silver tried to cheer him up, but as James didn’t follow his lead, this seemed to be something as expected as the changing of seasons. James started to stoke the fire in the evenings, till they all sweated with the heat. He brought home wool for Thomas to wear and wrapped him head to foot.

"He doesn’t like the cold," Silver mentioned sardonically one morning, as they trod through an early snow to the village together.

Thomas moved slower the colder it got, and trailed behind them like a shadow.

"It’s not the weather around us, it’s the cold in his bones. This just reminds him."

"That sounds ominous."

James glanced at him, then behind at Thomas, and took a deep breath.

"His first prison was stone. It was cold and it was damp. It was a place men were sent to die not to heal. Thomas fell ill, as soon as the autumn chilled the air. He didn’t recover before winter, and the illness only deepened in the spring. By summer, he’d run out of chances. He ingratiated himself to a young guard and persuaded the boy to send a message to Peter."

James said the name with disdain.

"Peter, likely afraid someone would spread news that he’d known of Thomas’s imminent death and done nothing to prevent it, sent word about the labour camp in Savannah to Alfred."

That name was said with utter disgust.

"That was when Peter wrote to Miranda and I that Thomas had died."

James paused there, unable to continue through a tightened throat. The wound was still raw. Silver realized there’d been no comfort for James at the loss. He’d had to be strong for Miranda as her only ally. That night on the island when James had spoken Thomas’s name for Silver, and Silver had spoken a quick word of sympathy back, was likely the first word of sympathy James had heard.

"Peter couldn’t risk us finding out that Thomas had been moved, for if we had made trouble in Savannah that would have been Peter’s trouble, as he was the one who’d recommended moving Thomas there. Peter would have lost favor with Alfred and possibly his appointment to Charleston."

"God," Silver breathed, "and I thought I was a schemer."

"Not like them. Not like them at all. After a season of labour, Thomas, already ill, succumbed quickly to fever. The proprietor was so certain of his death that he himself wrote to Alfred that he was willing to make an exception and return Thomas to London if requested, believing Thomas would not even remember his time in Savannah. Alfred refused."

James breath shuddered out. 

"Thomas was too stubborn to die, but after surviving pneumonia and fever, he was very weak and prone to collapse. For three years, Thomas was still mostly bedridden, and the proprietor of the plantation risked one more letter. To Alfred this could only be a ploy to manipulate him out of more doctor's fees. He had business in the colonies and planned to visit Savannah to personally haggle a price to keep Thomas there."

"He didn’t care, if he killed his son?"

James glanced at him again. "To a man like Alfred, it was preferable to have a son who’d died in London."

Silver glanced back at Thomas, who was so peaceful even in his pain.

"So when the air grows cold, Thomas is reminded of the moment he realized he’d been sent to his death, that he’d been betrayed by everyone he’d trusted."

The guilt was thick in James’ voice.

"Not you," John said fiercely.

"Every prison has a weakness. I could have found a way to get him out."

"Maybe," John acceded, "but what good is speculation about when you could have done it? Here he is. You got him out. I know it’s hard to see him grieving, but better that he does. Better that he feels his losses as real. He still believes in trust and warmth and freedom, because you’ve given them back to him. Well...with the help of an entire pirate army."

"And you."

"An accident of my eternal selfishness," John scoffed.

"I wouldn’t have it any other way. Come here."

The embrace came slowly, testing its welcome, but John let it come. He let himself be drawn to James’ body, and he’d been right; he was warm. Thomas caught up to them and smiled.

*

In the spring, James spent more time escorting villagers to and from the city. To pass the time, John asked Thomas to teach him how not to get punched directly in the face in a fistfight. The boxing Thomas had learned had a lot of rules. It felt more like learning a dance than tactics of battle. It also proved to be more difficult to teach John than either had anticipated. Most of the art was based on the movement of the feet and the shifting of balance between the two. John had no left foot to shift onto, only a crutch which required one hand, making him a much more adept student of swordplay than fisticuffs.

Even more challenging to his teacher was the fact that John could not bring himself to throw a punch at Thomas. John didn’t know why he couldn’t. The easiest assumption was a fear of James’ reprisal, if he accidentally struck the man, but he’d never been stopped by that fear before. As a result of his hesitance Thomas threw hands while Silver blocked, leaving Thomas to work harder. He was breathing heavily, when they heard James call out a greeting.

"You’re back early," Thomas called, as James strode into the yard. "No trouble I hope."

"None that wasn’t handled," James replied with a startling grin, while reaching into his coat pocket. "I had time to purchase some Spanish contraband."

Thomas took the little, ceramic, stoppered pot from his hand. He uncorked it and sniffed.

"Is it Spanish olive oil?" he asked in a rush, tipping a drop onto his finger.

When he licked the tip of his finger, James leaned in and followed Thomas’s tongue with his own, licking at his lips and then speaking against them.

"I want you."

"Now?"

James answered by tipping his chin down to lick at the sweat that ran down Thomas’s neck. Sweat that Silver had helped put there with their sparring. The notion sent an unexpected shiver through John’s body.

"Yes, now, then," Thomas agreed, guiding them back into the cabin.

He paused at the door and looked at John, with James still kissing his neck.

"You’re welcome to come in out of the sun, if you’d like," he said, and then James was walking him inside.

Silver sat in the grass. He was hot. The cool shadow of the open doorway beckoned. It would hardly be out of the sun though. The bright, white light of springtime would be pouring in through the windows. It was the kind of light that made all the leaves look velvet, the trees look polished, as though the whole world was welcoming touch.

It was a time of new things, and walking through that door would be new. He hadn’t watched them. He’d seen what he needed to that first night, and since then, simply let their soft sounds of pleasure soothe him like lullabies. 

John stripped off his blouse and lay back in the grass. The new shoots felt cool with the sweet sap within. He sprawled his arms out and closed his eyes to watch the sun make patterns of red and orange on his lids. He could hear them now. Their groans a little freer this afternoon, without worrying about upsetting his sleep. John liked the sound of it. He lifted his head to look toward the doorway again.

The groans went quiet, and John smiled at how quickly it’d ended. The two men hadn’t made love much through the winter, as Thomas’s moods had been too subdued. John pushed himself up onto his hands and gripped his crutch. He took his time rising and crossing the yard. The taunting smile on his face dropped, when he stepped into the cabin.

It was as bright as he’d expected. He could see every freckle on James’ shoulders. He could see the goosebumps that rose on Thomas’s skin, trailing behind the wetness of James’ tongue. James squinted at him for a moment, the dark silhouette he must present in the sunny doorway, then returned to bathing Thomas’s stomach with his tongue, perfectly focused on his task.

The question rose up in John, as it had in every quiet moment since the roads had become travelable again: what was he doing here? If he asked James, he’d likely be told he was keeping Thomas company. Thomas would likely agree. He knew they both wanted him here. That was not in question.

Silver looked toward his cot, to the darkened space beneath, and the small box that held the coins James had paid him for guarding Thomas. It seemed a sad, little tribute mocking all of the losses that had passed between Silver and Flint. John had only spent enough to clothe himself. He didn’t want to spend any of it. He didn’t want it at all.

As he raised his gaze away, it caught on the gleam of something smooth and green in the middle of his mattress. He walked over to it and stared down. It was a corked, ceramic pot. The one James had given to Thomas had been glazed in violet. John lifted this one into his hand, the surface glossy and kind to the fingers. It was meant to be held, to be touched and enjoyed.

He heard Thomas gasp behind him and turned his head slowly, to just catch them in his peripheral. James had apparently been working his way downward, as now one of Thomas’s legs was pushed up and James’ head low. The sight was saved from being profane by Thomas’s fine mouth open in obvious rapture. 

He became aware of his heart’s movement in his chest, as he understood why he couldn’t throw a punch toward Thomas. He flushed with the knowledge that he found the man beautiful. Only he didn’t covet that beauty for himself. He wanted to not mar that beauty, for James’ sake. So that John could continue to celebrate it with James. Because that was what they were doing here in a hundred small ways that he hadn’t known the sum of till now. They were celebrating.

He heard James’ hoarse whisper.

"I want you again."

He heard Thomas’s quiet laughter.

"Yes."

Even in the midst of animal instinct, James moved tenderly and slowly, until Thomas’s laughter flowed into a moan. It was that show of self-mastery that finally ushered John into arousal. This quality John had viscerally admired in the man who was, and it felt exultant to still be able to now. There was a truth of him that no other man, no nation, no god could master. It had made James hated and alone, but to John it had been a beacon even in the depths of a swallowing sea. 

John remembered how powerful he’d felt, while pulling him from the ocean, sodden clothing heavy and dragging like the man’s willfulness. And yet John had been strong enough to pull him over the sand to the dry land. He could see the scar on the back of James’ shoulder in the bright light, from the wound that he’d pressed bandaging to. He’d laid him in the sun that day and watched him breathe. 

He heard a chickadee call playfully from the trees. For five years John had moved in shifting patterns through the colonies, cautious of being counter-tracked. He hadn’t done it to protect himself, but to make sure he led no other man to James’ door. Today that door stood safely open. 

John recognized this new feeling buoying him up. He could see it gleam in James’ eyes, as he watched Thomas sigh and writhe and arch into his touch. He was proud. He was not here by accident. This was the destination John had journeyed to with purpose and skill, and the reward was his.


End file.
